The handsome Yale lab technician Raymond Clark quizzed by cops in connection with the grisly slaying of brilliant grad student Annie Le allegedly forced an ex-girlfriend to have sex with him, according to a new report. The New Haven Independent reports on its Web site today that Clark dated the woman, who has not been identified, about six years ago when they were both in high school. According to a 2003 police report obtained by the newspaper earlier this week, she told police he forced her to have sex with him and he “confronted” her -- when against his wishes...

Moreover, assuming Trooper Wooten was ever inclined to attack Governor Palin or a family member, logic dictates that getting him fired would accomplish nothing to eliminate the harm to her or her family. On the contrary, it might just precipitate some retaliatory conduct on his part.

Notes from the convention: Drafts of John McCain's acceptance speech have been bopping around the inside of the campaign for at least a few days, and a question is whether or how much it will be changed to account for the hurricane in New Orleans and the Gulf coast. An early draft is said to have been direct to the point of rambunctious in drawing contrasts between the policies of Obama and McCain. "Lotta biography, lotta foreign policy, taking Obama straight on," said a GOP strategist Tuesday afternoon. The final draft may be different, softer. Advice? By Thursday night rambunctious...

Rosie O’Donnell, who abruptly left “The View” on ABC last spring after drawing attention and ratings for her opinions on everything from the Iraq war to her co-hosts, is in serious discussions to return to television atop a new soapbox: a prime-time show on the cable news channel MSNBC, according to executives on both sides of the negotiations who have been briefed directly.

Hundreds of protesters in France have rung in the New Year by holding a light-hearted march against it. Parodying the French readiness to say "non", the demonstrators in the western city of Nantes waved banners reading: "No to 2007" and "Now is better!"

Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday. In a scathing attack on the record of President George W. Bush, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January, said: “What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions...

Paul Czysz, professor emeritus of aerospace engineering at St. Louis University, said the plane's final maneuvers -- a descent from 37,000 feet to 2,000 feet and then an ascent to 7,000 feet -- couldn't have been performed by autopilot. He wonders why a person who knew enough to try to fly a jetliner wouldn't pick up the headset and talk to the ground. "Someone knew how to work the airplane," Czysz said. "Obviously he didn't want to contact the tower."

PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) -- If you were one of those kids who never got picked for the dodgeball team, you get a second chance. The grade school game is now hot among young adults. "It's ridiculously fun. It's high-energy, you don't stop moving. There's sensory overload," said Colleen Finn, who founded the Portland adult dodgeball league this year. And throwing a ball hard at someone can be fun, too.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- FBI agents investigating the 2001 anthrax attacks have re-interviewed a researcher formerly with the Army bioweapons laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland, his lawyer and government sources said Monday. The attorney for Ayaad Assaad, who now works at the Environmental Protection Agency, said FBI agents assured her that her client is not a suspect. Assaad was questioned last week, mostly about a letter sent to police in Quantico, Virginia, days before the anthrax mailings. The letter alleged that Assaad was a potential bioterrorist and was going to wage "war" against the American people, according to attorney Rosemary McDermott....

Back to last year: At last weekend's White House Correspondents' Dinner, one gossip column reports, liberal comedian Al Franken went up to Paul Wolfowitz, the neoconservative deputy defense secretary and said, "Clinton's military did pretty well in Iraq, huh?"